HUGE lead find

[RU shooter]

:-DWhile web crawling this AM I found a local add for lead for sale only 5 miles away from my door.After a quick email and phone call I discover this gentleman has 100,000 lbs of lead available:holysheep Its for real I've seen the loaded pallets!Anyway I went and bought enough to last me a very long time. Its in wool form ,fairly soft (maybe near pure?) and its in these 40 lb. white rubbery canvas flat sacks theres a gromet at each corner and a wide velcro strap that goes almost the entire way around it? Anybody know where these came from and what their used for? Heres a sample of the haul. :drinks: If theres any of you local guys interested in some of this Let me know as there is easily enough to share.The price was 50 cent a LB. not a steal but not bad either.

****SMELTING UPDATE TODAY**** Well I opened up a bagfull today and fired up the 220V melt O matic and smelted some up.It does seem to be near pure and very soft .I also got the nice blue and gold hue on the surface same as when I melted other known soft lead,

Now the down side I skimmed off approx. 5-7lb. of dross from the 40 lb sack It was all a tan colored powdery stuff about what well dried clay dirt looks like. So that would bring the price to about 20 bucks for 33-35lb net weight still not great but better than I can buy from someone with the shipping costs included.

Tim

11851

[rugerman1]

PM sent for details http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q299/sawrm1/throwaway.gif

[No_1]

Portable shielding is my guess.

Robert

[Hip's Ax]

I know it was used by plumbers for caulking applications. I recently tried to find 5 pounds locally to redo a lead and oakum soil pipe joint. I was being lazy, didn't feel like fireing up the lead pot. [smilie=1:

I THINK lead wool is pure lead. If it is I wish I were closer, I could use 500 pounds or so.

After looking carefully at the picture I agree with No.1, I can't think of any other use for this configuration (lead wool in a canvas bag?) but portable shielding. Whats it say exactly on the bag? When installed remove only if authorized by.....????

[RU shooter]

I know it was used by plumbers for caulking applications. I recently tried to find 5 pounds locally to redo a lead and oakum soil pipe joint. I was being lazy, didn't feel like fireing up the lead pot. [smilie=1:

I THINK lead wool is pure lead. If it is I wish I were closer, I could use 500 pounds or so.

After looking carefully at the picture I agree with No.1, I can't think of any other use for this configuration (lead wool in a canvas bag?) but portable shielding. Whats it say exactly on the bag? When installed remove only if authorized by.....???? It says remove only if auth. by code 105??? And hey your only about 6-7 hrs away


Tim

[Westwindmike]

Probably from 3 Mile Island.
Should be safe in a couple hundred years.

[RU shooter]

Probably from 3 Mile Island.
Should be safe in a couple hundred years. No the guy is a truck driver and said it came from WA. said a private company was selling it as scrap.

[rhead]

Lead wool has a very high surface area per unit weight. The natural oxidation will of course occur on the surface. The loss to dross may make the deal slightly less advantagious. )f course with the lack of alternative sources it may still be cheap at twice the price. It will still be cheaper than jacketed. A test run and report would be intresting. Congratulations on the find and good luck.

[Hip's Ax]

Yeah, I know, I'm already considering it. Do you have a way to tell if it is indeed pure?

[runfiverun]

pour a boolit and do a bhn test.
lead wool should be close to pure.

[No_1]

I came from CNSYD and "Code 105" was RADCON there. These people controlled the radiation areas in the yard. Being they are marked as such then I stand by my thoughts of it being portable shielding. I would believe unless they were stolen from a highly protected laydown area then they should be totally safe.

Robert



It says remove only if auth. by code 105??? And hey your only about 6-7 hrs away


Tim

[briang]

Would anyone mind posting a general location for this, I am considering getting some and would like to know how far it is. Thanks.

[RU shooter]

Would anyone mind posting a general location for this, I am considering getting some and would like to know how far it is. Thanks. Mt.Pleasant Pa. Westmoreland Co.

[mold maker]

Just curious. Does lead absorb radioactivity, or just not let it pass through by reflecting it??
Is lead not the end product of the half life of naturally occurring radioactive material??

[briang]

Mt.Pleasant Pa. Westmoreland Co.

Thanks, Google maps puts it at 4.5 hours from the Philadelphia area, to far for me. If anyone from my area or going through my area makes a trip and wouldn't mind bringing back some extra please let me know.

[Hip's Ax]

OK, my shooting buddy's interest is piqued. I'm curious, is the 40 pounds per bag net weight of lead or is the 50 cents a pound paying for canvas and grommets too?

If this goes through I'm looking at over two tanks of gas and a co pilot so we can go, buy lead and drive back in one shot. Need to know just how attractive this is.

[NSP64]

Just curious. Does lead absorb radioactivity, or just not let it pass through by reflecting it??
Is lead not the end product of the half life of naturally occurring radioactive material??

'Lead absorbs certain types of radiation. It has a low level of nutron capture therefore will not become radioactive.' From the Mars metal website, they make radiation shielding.

[tanstafl10]

PM sent

[JeffinNZ]

I thought I knew a bit about sheep being from the land of the woolly but what breed produces lead wool!?

[bobk]

Jeff,
Actually they're a breed that originated in NZ. They're very heavy to keep them from falling off the bottom of the world.. The glowing lights you see in the sky at night are sheep that weren't heavy enough.

Bob K

[briang]

I need to get my hands on some of them sheep. I'd be set for life.

[Hip's Ax]

I thought I knew a bit about sheep being from the land of the woolly but what breed produces lead wool!?

Any breed that has been grazing in New Jersey. :lol:

[rickomatic]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Westwindmike
Probably from 3 Mile Island.
Should be safe in a couple hundred years.

No the guy is a truck driver and said it came from WA. said a private company was selling it as scrap.


It probably came from Hanford then.

[bobthenailer]

let me know what the price is ! i live in the mon valley of sw pa

[dominicfortune00]

PM sent for location.

IIRC, lead is totally radioactive decayed uranium.

[RU shooter]

let me know what the price is ! i live in the mon valley of sw pa .50 cent a lb. Mr Bob.


Tim

[Big Boomer]

Over the years I have scrounged brass, but I've also scrounged WWs and everything else that goes into lead boolits. A relative was (still is) in the foundry business (plant supervisor) who did me the huge favor of bringing me some pure tin still in the original containers. At that time when pours were made, certain amounts of tin were specified by the lab techs. Leftovers in containers were trashed. Those were the days! Tin started climbing in price and is 'way up now, so the supply completely dried up. That was years ago and I still have a substantial amount of the stuff. Another source in the late 1970s was a friend who ran an alignment service and used gobs of WWs. I got several 5-gallon buckets and cast them into ingots, some of which I still have. Then I have a cousin who married a guy who was into casting boolits, then turned to blackpowder only. We traded some pure lead (from me) to a gob of WWs from him cast up into Lyman-marked ingots. Then I've done my share of picking up bullets from the gun club berm. But one of my best deals was an old friend who was the master brass and boolit scrounger at our gun club. I got to casting some of his favorite .45 ACP boolits for him and he began giving me boolits he had picked up by the one gallon milk jug. I'd take him a few hundred cast boolits and he would give me three gallons of commercial cast boolits for recycling he had picked up. You don't have to do anything to that alloy except flux and cast. This was all stored at a bud's barn where we did our casting for many years. I've shot out of that stash for the last 40 years. I moved from that state to my present home in southern Ky. and went back last week to bring home with me the remnants of my scrounging and casting. Weighed on a set of bathroom scales, the total was 850 lbs. of WW, commercial cast for recycling and some tin I had cast into ingots. At the age of 69, I may have enough to last me a little while. 'Tuck

[RU shooter]

****SMELTING UPDATE TODAY**** Well I opened up a bagfull today and fired up the 220V melt O matic and smelted some up.It does seem to be near pure and very soft .I also got the nice blue and gold hue on the surface same as when I melted other known soft lead,

Now the down side I skimmed off approx. 5-7lb. of dross from the 40 lb sack It was all a tan colored powdery stuff about what well dried clay dirt looks like. So that would bring the price to about 20 bucks for 33-35lb net weight still not great but better than I can buy from someone with the shipping costs included.

Tim

[Tuttle8]

RU,

Is the lead wool still available? There's a member on another forum looking for pure lead and I thought of your thread...

[only1asterisk]

I'm in the area and interested if there is any left.

[mike in co]

I came from CNSYD and "Code 105" was RADCON there. These people controlled the radiation areas in the yard. Being they are marked as such then I stand by my thoughts of it being portable shielding. I would believe unless they were stolen from a highly protected laydown area then they should be totally safe.

Robert


yep i was in ship yards and xray or radcon...sounds about right.


mike in co

[mike in co]

No the guy is a truck driver and said it came from WA. said a private company was selling it as scrap.

bremerton shipyard ? lots of nuc sub repairs done there.

[dakotashooter2]

I would think another advantage might be that it would melt down fairly fast thus saving some cost/fuel/energy in the smelting process.